From One Black To Another
by CalicoKitty17
Summary: Regulus was dead, has been for sixteen years...but what if he wasn't? What if instead of being drowned by an army of inferi he was dragged into the lake and put in a stasis? Sirius is ecstatic, Regulus not so much. "What do you mean fugitive? And Voldemort's still alive? Can you do anything without me?" "If I say no will you promise not to disappear like that ever again?" AU


Disclaimed.

I know, I really should stop starting all these stories, but I just have so many ideas! Tell me what you think.

Inspired by the fact that Regulus is my favorite character and I am supremely unhappy with how it turned out for him in the books.

And yes, I deleted this story and reposted it again with some edits.

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 **From One Black To Another**

 **by CalicoKitty17**

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Regulus had always kept his room disgustingly tidy.

He noticed that with some vague feelings of amusement as he sat in Regulus' room, on Regulus' bed.

It was something that had annoyed him once, long ago- almost forever, it seemed-, and had spurred him into completely wrecking the place while Regulus was at a friend's house. ( _He didn't remember which friend, should he know something like that?)_ It had been mean and petty, the peak of juvenility disregard and the height of his pureblood _'you're below me so you don't matter'_ attitude, but at that age he had found it hilarious. Especially the look on Regulus' face when he opened the door and saw all his precious research strewn about the floor, out of order, and his books tipped from their shelves into page-bending piles.

It hurt, made his heart twinge, to look back and know that he really had believed that Regulus was below him, that his self-righteous 'I'm a Gryffindor, therefore better than you' outlook had made him the embodiment of hypocrisy. After all, wasn't Slytherins looking down on everyone else (muggleborns especially) the whole reason he had been so determined to renounce them and everything in relation to them? Including Regulus, young Regulus who had waved his older brother, the person he looked up to most, off for his first-year of school, and had a stranger with new friends, new ideals, and new ways to annoy his parents come back.

Sirius wondered what would have been different if he hadn't become so preoccupied with his friends, the Marauders, and their pranks that he completely ignored his younger sibling and inadvertently left him to the mercy (figuratively speaking, because in reality she had none) of their mother who found herself down an heir and with a whole heap of criticism around her head for allowing that to happen. He wondered how desperate that had made her, what it had made her do, to craft his sweet little 'this bird has a broken wing, can we fix it?' brother into the perfect Death Eater successor. He wondered how much a part his cruel pranks played into it and he wondered and _wondered_ and _**wondered.**_

It drove him mad with guilt- _what if I did push Regulus into becoming a Death Eater-_ with anger- _how dare she drag her son, someone she should have loved unconditionally, into that cesspool of hate and evil-_ and frustration- _why couldn't Regulus have held out for longer, asked for help?_ And then there was the bitterness- _why did it have to turn out like this? Why can't we have a second chance? None of us deserved this._

"I wish…" Sirius whispered into the surroundings, forlorn and longing for something that was impossible and yet something he couldn't help but _want._ "I wish I could see him again to…" _tell him how much I love him, apologize for how much of a prat I was, figure out exactly how Walburga managed to twist the child who defended house-elves into a Death Eater…_ "…to make things better." It was a lame ending, sounded awkward and unfit to his ears, but he _meant_ it, meant it with all his heart and all his soul.

And Magic heard him.

* * *

It was cold, _oh so cold, a chill deep down in his bones_ **...**

 _...he had been asleep for so long- no, not asleep, semi-conscious, because he could feel everything around him…_

… _it had just faded into nothing after being trapped for so long…_

… _now…he wasn't trapped?_

 _How did I get free? Where am I? WhathappenedWhendidWhoam…_

 _ **Why don't I remember anything?**_

"You don't remember? Oh dear, that won't do."

 _A voice? No, not a voice, a ringing sense of words in his head, of the meaning of words maybe, because they weren't actually words even if that didn't make sense and they hadn't been spoken, only felt but how could words be felt and not heard..._

… _his head hurt, it was missing so much…so much knowledge, information he felt he should have, memories that he knew would help him figure out this mystery…_

… _it was like a puzzle that was missing a bunch of pieces…_

 _...wasn't he good with those? Was it bad that he didn't know?_

… _then there was a flash…_

… _and it all came flooding back, jumbled, memory after memory, drowning him under a deluge of pictures and faces and conversations and plans…_

Regulus awoke.

* * *

And buried deep within the Black library, dusting the shelves in the farthest corner he could find, away from the master-who-was-not-his-master and the steady stream of mudbloods and blood traitors- _"don't call them that, they're not that bad,"_ a gentle chide from a soft, still squeaky with youth voice, but Walburga's " _get out! You taint the house of Black with your filthy fingers!"_ was louder- a house-elf stopped what he was doing.

"Master Regulus?" He dared to wonder, feeling the slave-bond (with him, it hadn't really been a slave bond, though) between him and the Black's split; the newest thread didn't feel new, it felt like gentle compassion broken by pain, intelligence that was pushed again and again, all blooming from a foundation of pride, _don't show weakness,_ and distrust, _be careful what you show, of what you let other people know_ , and a less familiar sense of cold resignation that did nothing to change the fact that Kreacher _knew_ this thread.

He didn't think twice ( _barely let himself waste a minute thinking about it once, because Master Regulus was alive!)_ before reaching out and giving it an eager tug.

With a pop, the library was empty.


End file.
